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Bryce Canyon National Park Main Area

Bryce Canyon park is enormous! We spent all day exploring the main part of the park and didn’t get to all we wanted to do.

We drove to Sunset Point and gaped at the main amphitheater. The scale is immense, but this photo tries to give you an idea. Because the altitude in the park is 6600 to 9100 feet, there are sub-alpine trees and cool breezes.

We hiked the Navajo Loop Trail down into the canyon. It was a steep descent, but we really started to get an idea of how tall the formations and the canyon walls are. The colors changed with every angle of the sun and as each cloud passed by. You could really spend hours in one spot watching the changes.

Loved the hoodoos! It was fun to guess what each one looked like, and then check with the official names. The one on the left below is Thor’s Hammer.

This one is “Queen Victoria” and does indeed look like the statue of her we saw in front of Kensington Palace.

We took the Queen’s Garden trail back up to the rim. This was an easier ascent than going up the Navajo Loop would have been, and it takes you close to many fascinating formations.

We learned that the best way to do these parks is to drive or take the shuttle to the farthest point and work your way back to the entrance or visitors center. You avoid some of the crowds and can gauge your progress and how much daylight is left. So, after a remarkably good lunch at the park lodge, we drove to the far south end of the park to Rainbow Point and hiked the short Bristlecone Pine Loop and a spur to Yovimpa Point.

The bristlecone pines are the oldest living organisms on earth, some up to 1000 years old.

We worked our way north through the park and stopped at the Natural Bridge and Farview Point.

Fairyland Point was magnificent! We must return and do the hikes in this canyon.

Wow! And this was only in the main part of Bryce Canyon NP! More to come…